What is in a Name
by AutumnalA
Summary: A drabble-ish one-shot. Fluff warning to be heeded. Harry, thinks about the name Ginevra, over the course of their relationship.


When Harry first learns Ginny's name, Ginevra, he thinks it doesn't suit her at all. Ginevra sound stiff and formal, regal and elegant even. Ginny isn't these things. Neither the shy, blushing girl sticking her elbow in the butter dish, nor the feisty, fearless, sporty Ginny he's gotten to know. It isn't that he doesn't know she's a girl, as Hermione opines when he mentions to her that Ginny's name doesn't fit her. Ginny is a girl, pretty even. But she is funny and fun and smart and strong and real, and Ginevra doesn't seem like any of those things. Ginny is just Ginny

Later, as he falls in love with her (overnight? Over so many months?), he thinks maybe Ginevra isn't so far off as all that. There is a certain elegance, when she is sweeping out of the room, angry at Ron. And something prim and sweet when she blushes a Seamus' dirty jokes. And Ginevra has a ring of fantasy to it (and he feels a bit in a fantasy being with her), sounds like some exotic princess, or heroine. While she isn't exotic, Ginny is all wholesome hominess with her freckles and long red hair and peaches and cream pale skin. But she is heroic, unafraid and good, in a way that no one could deny. Even Draco Malfoy is heard calling her (albeit sarcastically) the Weasley Girl-Wonder when she swoops in to shout at her fellow fifth year for teasing Luna. But when she shouts her face turns splotchy and her hair gets mussed. Ginny is beautiful and good and graceful (flying on her broom in sweeping loops or shooting like an arrow trailing red and gold). But she is also so real and there for him to hold, warm and lively. Is Ginevra really a girl that he could take in his arms and hold? Ginny is just (dear, beautiful, wonderful, beloved) Ginny.

It isn't until after the final battle, after they are back together and everything in Harry's life seems finally falling into place, that Harry happens to ask Hermione what the name Ginevra even means anyway (Ginny is away at school and he is going out of his mind missing her) that he finds out (recited to him verbatim) "Ginevra is an Italian variant of Guinevere Arthur's legendary queen ('you are aware of the Arthurian legend, Harry, aren't you? Because I read a very interesting book lately you know, on the differences inherent in the Muggle and wizarding variants of the story…) it means fair and white. Well certainly Ginny is pale, and she is fair enough, although often stubborn ("not fair, as in just, Harry, but fair as in pale. And you know really, in the past whiteness and fairness would also have represented goodness and virtue… and you know even today there is an unfortunate…") Much to his chagrin, Harry spends a bit of time looking up Guinevere after talking to Hermione. He imagines that Ginevra (not Guinevere, who he finds a little too fickle) is pretty much everything beautiful and ethereal, but maybe delicate, infinitely precious. And Ginny is those things too, in her way. Ginny he sees for the first time in a couple months muddy and bleeding from scrape above her eye, and while beautiful (she takes his breath away, and not just as she crashes into him to crush him in a hug that belies her petite frame) to him she always seems real, sometimes the most real, and he loves that most of all. Ginny is just (on bended knee at the end of the year, he can hear Ron sniggering as Hermione sniffles behind him but then the whole world is Ginny, Ginny crying and radiant when she says yes) Ginny.

Nervous, Harry tries desperately not to rake both his hands through his hair as he stands at the altar. Ron is hissing at him to hold still and quit his fussing (Honestly, if she didn't mean to marry you she'd not have agreed to it in the first place mate). But nothing calms him down, nothing at all, until the music strikes up and the audience (guests?) grow silent and turn in their seats.

Walking toward him she is bathed in light and seems to glow through the heavy blush of her cheeks. She is elegant and graceful, all the while wearing that grin that portends mischief and joy to him. Her hair is radiant and shining, and she looks like she could be a Veela, or an angel, or one of the fairies he saw in books nicked from Dudley's room as a child. Eyes blazing like she could take on anything, she takes her time coming toward him, like he took his time falling in love with her (or was it there in that cold dungeon, 'Ginny, please don't be dead Ginny please don't be dead')

She is walking toward him a brightly burning beauty with her peaches and cream skin, her riot of freckles, her hands just a bit calloused from Quidditch, her lips just a bit tight to hold back laughter. And he thinks

This is the Ginevra I love. Ginevra who is just Ginny and Ginevra and soon (it flies by in a haze) Mrs Ginevra Potter.

Harry thinks that he's never heard a finer name.

And it suits her just perfectly.


End file.
